At the foot of the incline we gained the Waihohonu Valley, a wild, desolate-looking ravine with a winding stream running down its centre. To the left, on the opposite side of this watercourse, was a dense forest growth, while on the ground around the tussock grass and dwarfed alpine plants peculiar to this region struggled for life amidst the huge stones and small low scoria hillocks which were dispersed about in a confused but picturesque way. At the end of the cluster of forest towards the mountain a steep wall of lava-like rock rose abruptly up, and ended in high scoria ridges which closed in the valley to the south-west. Looking in a north-easterly direction, the rugged promontories and jagged edges of the broken extinct craters of the lower mountains rose high in the air, piled about in a confused mass, and coloured dark red and black by the effects of the volcanic fires which appeared to have rent and torn them asunder until they had assumed the appearance of embattled walls and crumbling ruins. The whole conformation of this valley, which was nearly two miles in length, assumed a somewhat semicircular appearance, as if, at some period or another, it had formed part of an enormous crater, out of which the gigantic cone that towered thousands of feet above us had ultimately reared its lofty summit. Although the sun shone with a dazzling splendour over us, and a light-green vegetation clothed many of the hills around, and even crept up the steep scoria sides of the great mountain itself, the Waihohonu Valley had a wild, dreary, and parched-up look, as if some fiery breath had but recently swept over it, and it was only just getting cool from the effects of the volcanic fires, which had left stupendous monuments of their work in the enormous lava ridges, which seemed to have cooled suddenly in their molten course down the steep precipices; while the gigantic boulders of black, shining, volcanic rock, which lay scattered about in every direction, looked like tremendous thunderbolts just newly hurled to earth by the hand of Titan. Not a few of these enormous stones appeared to have been rounded by the action of fire, and in some cases to have been partially melted before being sent high into the air from the fiery mouth of the crater, to fall with terrific force into their present positions.